70’s – A vision of fashion

In 1974, Ines de la Fressange was seventeen years old: "When I was a child, the things I liked in magazines were always from Victoire."

When I was a young woman, I would go to Victoire and feel intimidated, feeling that everything was too expensive for me. But then the saleswomen were always very kind. Back then, Victoire put forward a vision of fashion, as a fashion magazine would do.

To me, Victoire was the first “concept store” although the word did not even exist. There was the “by appointment” rule – if Victoire had chosen something, it meant it was good – a guarantee for the customers and an honor for the designers.”

At the time, Françoise Chassagnac was the artistic director of Victoire: “My collaboration with Victoire started with a revolution, since I arrived in April 1968! I had never worked in fashion before, but Antoine Riboud knew my deep passion for clothing and he trusted me.

Inès de la Fressange: “Françoise Chassagnac is one of the people who made fashion become fashion. I also feel that Victoire was a coach to the customers. Many women worked and didn’t have the time or desire to go shopping. They could trust Victoire for making them trendy but not “fashion victims”. The store dressed the BOBOs before they even existed!”

In 1970, Jean-Jacques Picart, the famous fashion consultant, was 23 years old and had just opened his first press office:
“In the 1970s, something unique happened at Victoire’s- you would enter the store and get the impression that a nice person had done some amazing shopping just for you. You felt that everything in the store was not there thanks to chance, cronyism or snobbery, but simply because they were great. And if you had a little money and liked fashion, you’d capture the spirit of the times. Victoire offered a panoramic choice with items for young women and items for older women, casual and dressy clothes, in a perfect balance between fashionable and chic – a sort of trend meant to last!

At the time, under the influence of ELLE magazine, the boldest women started to replace the idea of fashion with the idea of style. That’s when fashion began to look into men’s wardrobe, borrowed from sportswear and invented the dressy day look … Victoire taught a whole generation of women how to put into practice all these fashion tips they had seen in magazines, according to their style and financial means.”